Disciple Cultivation System:All my students are legendary.

Art POV.

Why the sudden change of act, one might ask.

Well, I wanted to quit, and the system had presented me with a final opportunity.

[Preserving function… assimilated into penalty.]

[Multiple student casualties… calculating.]

[One death of personnel recorded.]

[500 unrelated student deaths recorded.]

[Calculating…]

[Multiple Transcendent-grade beings detected.]

[Penalty and countermeasures calculated.]

[Penalty: Progress Regression.]

<<Detail: All skills and cultivation rank will be downgraded. Skills, with the exception of Talent and Intent, will be deleted. All stored skill tickets will also be deleted, and students' emotion meters will regress.>>

I wasn't suppressed after what I had caused. I was actually surprised the system hadn't murdered me outright. But for such a nasty penalty, it also presented me with a temporary boost to end this tragedy.

[Countermeasure: Deus Ex Machina.]

<<Upon activation, the user will express a temporary boost in rank to reach the level of threat. Upon depletion, penalty will take place.>>

Ever since I entered this world, I had wanted a glorious end. So with this power, I would achieve that.

I would save the remaining students, and after that, I would end this all.

"Are you ready?"

Currently, Kiara and I stood on the rooftop of the hospital. The evening winds ruffled my hospital gown as I stared at the city skyline. In the distance was a part of the town shrouded in a crimson dome-shaped barrier, casting a reddish glow across the sleek windows of the skyscrapers around.

Kiara stood beside me, preparing for her spell.

"Instructor…"

"Just call me Art."

I was no longer qualified to be called an instructor, so I shut down her formality.

"Art…" She called, a bit weirded out before continuing. "Are you confident you can save them?"

"You came to me, believed in me when I didn't. So I'll make your belief into reality. If it's the last thing I can do."

I didn't want her to know this was my one and final chance to give up. She didn't need to know that, so I rephrased it as nicely as I could.

She seemed pleased as a smile tugged along the corners of her lips before she tapped her storage ring to take out an obsidian-colored longsword.

"Here." She gestured, passing me this blade that seemed to melt into the darkness. "Kia always tells me to keep it in case of an emergency. I don't really know how to use it, but I'm sure you can put it to more use than me."

As I accepted the sword she handed me, she began adding more details than I wanted to hear.

To her, I was a hero finally stepping up. To me, however, I was just some bum on a suicidal mission.

"Thanks!"

But no matter how suicidal I was, I knew when to take a lady's gift. She had faith in me when even I didn't have faith in myself. I wasn't doing this for her, but I would see this through and make sure I slaughtered all of the Pathfinders within the domain.

The caged legacy… well, I would carve a legacy for them. In every place they stood, I would make their grave. Scarlet, Kahn, Stringman, and all their associates would never see the light of tomorrow. I would make sure of that.

---

Grim stood among an army of soldiers that surrounded the crimson dome.

From the transparent surface of the bubble enclosing the academy, many bore witness to a haunting slaughter as individuals in dark cloaks dashed around, reaping away the lives of the poor students.

There was nothing she could do because currently, the barrier rejected all exit and entry. There was supposedly a crack at the apex of the barrier, but it was guarded by an entity that even she didn't want to cross blades with.

"Have we successfully identified the creature above?"

The commander of the army, a stern, dark-haired, tall man in a combat uniform, approached a tent where his subordinates, viewing a bird's-eye view of the dome, were gathered.

Grim, joining them, marveled at the sheer abnormality of not the machines but the creature guarding the dome crack.

It was a single eye, larger than the head of an infant and with slitted pupils.

It was an eye that seemed to have torn through space and fitted itself into the tear. Just observing it was like witnessing the concept of space grow a literal eye.

"Commander, the aether levels emitted by the creature are astronomical. They're on the level of Miss Grim… no, even higher."

"You're saying they're Transcendent or Saint rank?" Grim, leaning forward to keenly observe the creature, chimed in.

"Yes. We're calling it Uranus, Watcher of the Sky, and we've deduced its real body lays dormant outside our dimension."

"A portable rift."

The commander, his arms crossed, whispered—his words sending a chill down Grim's spine.

A rift meant this Uranus entity wasn't just a powerful creature but a powerful Abyssal creature.

A Saint-level Abyssal creature was called Calamity-class, spoken of in the same legends as the true ancient dragons.

If left unchecked, they could incinerate civilization as a whole and render the planet uninhabitable for centuries.

That thing was two classes above her, and it further confirmed how insignificant she was in comparison to a Saint.

She felt fear—the kind she rarely felt—and yet her students were within the barrier, directly below the eye.

If she let fear overtake her, then she was a failure of a teacher.

"Is there a way to bypass it?" the commander asked, and in return, he received grim faces from his subordinates.

"Just like we're using our drones scattered around to monitor it, so too is it using the aether from its manifestation to observe us. To put it simply, as long as it exists, it sees everything within the city—or maybe the whole country."

While they were going about their conversation, Grim blended into the shadows and activated her Intent.

As an assassin, there was only one intent befitting her.

[Stealth]

With this, her scent, the noises she made, her shadow, and even her physical body were cloaked, veiled by the world itself.

She didn't know how effective what she was about to do would be, but she had to try.

So in a single step, she disappeared and reappeared on the tallest skyscraper nearby.

There she witnessed Uranus face to face.

She watched as the monstrosity's pupil pulsed with an eerie glow and began moving about, searching for something.

"It feels my presence but can't detect me."

Arriving at that conclusion, she sighed in relief and stepped back to accelerate.

She moved until she was at the other end of the roof before she crouched and sprinted forward.

Just as she reached the edge and was about to leap forward, a portal opened above Uranus's body, spitting out a blonde man who drew his blade.

The world seemed to come to a halt around Grim as she planted her heels firmly in the ground to break her run.

Stopping right at the edge, she watched with awe as Art—his figure more brilliant than ever—let out a heartfelt roar. His voice thundered across the heavens, shaking even the soldiers below. With his sword blazing in his grip, he brought it down in a single, defiant strike aimed at the calamity below him.

In that instant, he was no longer a failed instructor, no longer a broken man clinging to regret.

He was the executioner of fate itself—charging head first into the jaws of despair to carve one final miracle.